For some reason if you even insinuate that there's some sexism floating around in the videogame industry legions of gamers will clutch their pearls like you personally called them a sexist pig and disprove you with a picture of Samus from 1986.

The comments this Atlantic article points out are unacceptable, and I don't see the problem with pointing that out. That doesn't mean if you own an xbox the atlantic is saying you're aiding and abetting misogyny, which is bizarrely how so many people seem to act.

It's not clear how much Larson-Green does or does not love the gaming industry, however. Assuming she doesn't love video games comes off as sexist, argues Wainwright. (Would people jump to say that about a dude?-Wainwright suggests not.)

Translation: The person who was taking free goodies from Square-Enix and threatened a U.K.-style libel suit against a company whose writer pointed this fact out questions the integrity of others.

Mike_LowELL:It's not clear how much Larson-Green does or does not love the gaming industry, however. Assuming she doesn't love video games comes off as sexist, argues Wainwright. (Would people jump to say that about a dude?-Wainwright suggests not.)

Translation: The person who was taking free goodies from Square-Enix and threatened a U.K.-style libel suit against a company whose writer pointed this fact out questions the integrity of others.

I don't give a shiat who runs the company as long as they produce a product I want to buy.

And as a throwback to the female video game lead character issue, every video game lead is so far removed from any resemblance to me and my life that programming them breasts will not affect my immersion in the game at all.

Esc7:For some reason if you even insinuate that there's some sexism floating around in the videogame industry legions of gamers will clutch their pearls like you personally called them a sexist pig and disprove you with a picture of Samus from 1986.

The comments this Atlantic article points out are unacceptable, and I don't see the problem with pointing that out. That doesn't mean if you own an xbox the atlantic is saying you're aiding and abetting misogyny, which is bizarrely how so many people seem to act.

I think the problem is that everyone in the media at all times takes some comments by a few rotten apples and makes it out like it is all gamers. Not all gamers are like that. How dare every media outlet that has every existed take such an over the top position?

Esc7:For some reason if you even insinuate that there's some sexism floating around in the videogame industry legions of gamers will clutch their pearls like you personally called them a sexist pig and disprove you with a picture of Samus from 1986.

The comments this Atlantic article points out are unacceptable, and I don't see the problem with pointing that out. That doesn't mean if you own an xbox the atlantic is saying you're aiding and abetting misogyny, which is bizarrely how so many people seem to act.

The biggest issue I have with the article is that it conflates legitimate criticism (that she doesn't have any video-game industry experience) with idiotic misogyny.

RyansPrivates:I think the problem is that everyone in the media at all times takes some comments by a few rotten apples and makes it out like it is all gamers. Not all gamers are like that. How dare every media outlet that has every existed take such an over the top position?

The problem is that the media doesn't view Twitter the same as sitting around in a mall in summer 1986 - full of loud teens and others with nothing better to do on a nice day than be in a mall/on Twitter. And horrible fashion.

OF COURSE you can find stupid shiat on Twitter - how many of those things are said by anyone of consequence? How many of those things are said by rational, thinking people over the age of 25? How many of those are given a forum to explain on the 140 characters they vomited onto a screen in a heightened emotional state?

If an outlet wouldn't write a news story because kids at the local swimming hole said mean things about Sarah Palin, they shouldn't write one about 9 twatters with more bandwidth than brains saying mean things about people they know even less about.

Misogyny totally exists in gaming (I don't really debate that), but using Twitter to prove it doesn't fly, and you do more harm to your argument than good by using it as support.

And this, my folks, is why that market segment needs to be sent back to the fringes of gaming whence it came. They've done nothing but harm to the industry, and the hobby, ever since taking over in the mid-1990s.

way south:Its almost as if these basement dwellers represented the most vitriolic and change averse segment of the filthy console gaming peasantry.

Hmmmm... It's almost as though video games attracts individuals with base emotions who only seek to fulfill their own selfish desire for entertainment. Golly, where would they have gotten the idea that they are the center of the universe, with a protagonist around which all events revolve and can never be wrong.

NostroZ:Going from that basic pre-supposition of our evolutionary biology and the fact that males see moving objects better than females, video games focus on quick reflexes and favor males.

Hence; the majority of games, which have fast reaction time to moving objects as the source of the winning objective results in video games being designed, created, and played by MEN.

Those concepts are inherently more immersive because the best of those games (particularly as played out through arcade distribution) command every waking second of the user's attention without any interruption. Just to note, games targeted towards women can be made, so long as they sell. There's an entire generation of point-and-click adventure games which are targeted towards women, because women are the target audience for those games, even as the "mainstream" has mostly passed that genre by. The bigger problem is that the economics of video game development, as centered around the largest publishers and the companies that make the most visible games, have become so utterly conservative that every game is built on the same template. It's not just "they won't make well-mannered female leads". They won't make anything that isn't tangentially related to Call of Duty or League of Legends. I don't think there's been a major commercial video game in several years vaguely resembling what made Blizzard/Westwood RTS games or Doom-style first-person shooters special. It ain't just a faithful depiction of women that isn't being sold, and it's more an economic issue than a moral issue.

I think the problem is that everyone in the media at all times takes some comments by a few rotten apples and makes it out like it is all gamers. Not all gamers are like that. How dare every media outlet that has every existed take such an over the top position?

I understand what you're saying. But the accusation you're insinuating feminists make isn't really happening.

Most feminists aren't making the case that this minority of idiots speaks for the whole community. They aren't even displeased that a minority of idiots exists.

The thing they are displeased about is the specific TYPE of insults that fly around when the target is a woman instead of a man. No one was commenting on Don Mattrick looks. No one was implying that he was a complete figurehead who can't compete. No one was bemoaning that Don Mattrick was going to make "hunting and fishing" games or somesuch shiat.

The entire spectrum of insults against women seem to come from such a different place than men. And people's refusal to recognize it, or denounce it is what causes feminists to rage.

Thankfully, I've effectively cut myself out of the toxic parts of the videogame community. It's really easy once you stop playing xbox live and LoL and just play games with your friends. I wish the feminists luck, but they aren't just banging up against the trolly idiots of the videogame world, they're running against western culture itself. And I don't think people really care.

Mike_LowELL:Those concepts are inherently more immersive because the best of those games (particularly as played out through arcade distribution) command every waking second of the user's attention without any interruption. Just to note, games targeted towards women can be made, so long as they sell. There's an entire generation of point-and-click adventure games which are targeted towards women, because women are the target audience for those games, even as the "mainstream" has mostly passed that genre by. The bigger problem is that the economics of video game development, as centered around the largest publishers and the companies that make the most visible games, have become so utterly conservative that every game is built on the same template. It's not just "they won't make well-mannered female leads". They won't make anything that isn't tangentially related to Call of Duty or League of Legends. I don't think there's been a major commercial video game in several years vaguely resembling what made Blizzard/Westwood RTS games or Doom-style first-person shooters special. It ain't just a faithful depiction of women that isn't being sold, and it's more an economic issue than a moral issue.

Microsoft isn't in the point and click candry crush gaming industry. They're in an industry that pretty much only males are interested in.

Mike_LowELL:NostroZ: Going from that basic pre-supposition of our evolutionary biology and the fact that males see moving objects better than females, video games focus on quick reflexes and favor males.

Hence; the majority of games, which have fast reaction time to moving objects as the source of the winning objective results in video games being designed, created, and played by MEN.

Those concepts are inherently more immersive because the best of those games (particularly as played out through arcade distribution) command every waking second of the user's attention without any interruption. Just to note, games targeted towards women can be made, so long as they sell. There's an entire generation of point-and-click adventure games which are targeted towards women, because women are the target audience for those games, even as the "mainstream" has mostly passed that genre by. The bigger problem is that the economics of video game development, as centered around the largest publishers and the companies that make the most visible games, have become so utterly conservative that every game is built on the same template. It's not just "they won't make well-mannered female leads". They won't make anything that isn't tangentially related to Call of Duty or League of Legends. I don't think there's been a major commercial video game in several years vaguely resembling what made Blizzard/Westwood RTS games or Doom-style first-person shooters special. It ain't just a faithful depiction of women that isn't being sold, and it's more an economic issue than a moral issue.

This problem is plauging movie studios as well.

Something is sucking up all the profit. The studios believe it is piracy (game and movie). I truly believe it is because we have so many more choices for entertainment and constant finite time to enjoy them that the profit is spread too thin across titantic industries.

It also doesn't help that the middle class customer has less to spend nowadays, but that's another discussion.

Current AAA development will be looked back on with incredulity on the amount of wasted money and effort we spent texturing brown rubble.

Esc7:The thing they are displeased about is the specific TYPE of insults that fly around when the target is a woman instead of a man.

Insults are meant to be hurtful. If you call a guy fat and ugly you're not going to get the reaction you want. Insults are going to be targeted to your race, gender and sexual preference. They are insults!! If you arn't displeased with the type then you're not doing it right.

The Stealth Hippopotamus:Esc7: The thing they are displeased about is the specific TYPE of insults that fly around when the target is a woman instead of a man.

Insults are meant to be hurtful. If you call a guy fat and ugly you're not going to get the reaction you want. Insults are going to be targeted to your race, gender and sexual preference. They are insults!! If you arn't displeased with the type then you're not doing it right.

Hey if you think this sort of thing is OK, there's nothing I can do to stop you.

Esc7:Something is sucking up all the profit. The studios believe it is piracy (game and movie). I truly believe it is because we have so many more choices for entertainment and constant finite time to enjoy them that the profit is spread too thin across titantic industries.

That's the biggest problem. Ten years ago, if someone who had a passing interest in video games wanted to play the things, they still had to buy fifty-dollar computer games or go out and buy a console. In both cases, those purchases could be used to subsidize the development of the better games. Activision and Ubisoft explicitly counted on Guitar Hero and the Imagine series for this. Now that everyone can now play these games on their phones, in addition to the general time distraction they can get with the internet, what's the point in paying sixty dollars for a video game? But since these big companies could never realistically downsize without facing a shareholder mutiny, they're just gonna milk the most conservative, money-proven game concepts until the entire thing comes burning down.

Esc7:Current AAA development will be looked back on with incredulity on the amount of wasted money and effort we spent texturing brown rubble.

In its defense, I think the leaps made forward in terms of graphical and technical fidelity will be looked back at very fondly, even if many of those games remain mediocre. From a visual perspective, Bioshock Infinite and Remember Me were just utterly incredible.

I don't care if the head of the Xbox division is a guy or a girl... if they aren't a GAMER, they shouldn't be there.

It's like putting Bonnie Hammer, an person who admits she doesn't like Sci-Fi, in charge of a science Fiction network... oh wait....

So this new division head will want to shape the Xbox One even more into a "media appliance" so they can watch their cable box through it and continue to denigrate gamers who lack decent broadband, and not understand the fuss over intrusive DRM or privacy issues. Yipee!

tlchwi02:way south: /I'm curious how the new system is going to regulate that, but not expecting it to be a complete solution.

the old system let you block people pretty easily (even if it just meant plugging in the headset and then just not putting it on your head.) I imagine they'll just continue that

That's what I had to do.

The whole travesty of it depressed me. I had wanted online networked voice chat for multiplayer games ever since I read some blurb about the future Sega Dreamcast back in the 90s

Now we have it, and it is mostly completely worthless. A cesspool.

Just the fact that so many people say such awful things, for no reason, annoys me. I don't want to outlaw it or hunt them down and crotchpunch them, but it irritates me that we have this amazing thing and its mostly ruined because most participants act incredibly rude.

I guess this makes me an old fart now. I just thought eventually our online dealings would mimic our real life dealings.

Mike_LowELL:ire generation of point-and-click adventure games which are targeted towards women, because women are the target audience for those games, even as the "mainstream" has mostly passed that genre by. The bigger problem is that the economics of video game development, as centered around the largest publishers and the companies that make the most visible games, have become so utterly conservative that every game is built on the same template. It's not just "they won't make well-mannered female leads". They won't make anything that isn't tangentially related to Call of Duty or League of Legends. I don't think there's been a major commercial video game in several years vaguely resembling what made Blizzard/Westwood RTS games or Doom-style first-person shooters special. It ain't just a faithful depiction of women that isn't being sold, and it's more an economic issue than a moral issue.

Right. Women play The Sims and other point and click story / sandbox game playing off the nesting instinct.

Entertainment in general has become stodgy. The problem is finance people coming in trying to lead creative people... that's not how it's done in entertainment. There needs to be a balance in the dance, but the creative side leads, while finance follows and screams "ow, you stepped on my foot".

Esc7:Hey if you think this sort of thing is OK, there's nothing I can do to stop you.

I just don't understand why girl/ladies/women want to be sheltered as a protected group. My point (maybe I wasn't clear) was that the insults that are flung at the boys are targeted to hurt them on topics they care about. And if you want gender equality, you're going to have to understand that when you are insulted they will be targeting topics that are meaningful to women. It's how insulting works. If they aren't targeting topics you care about then they arn't trying to insult you.

I'd love to live in a world where people didn't feel the need to insult other people. But we don't and we won't this does not mean I'm ok with it.

Mike_LowELL:In its defense, I think the leaps made forward in terms of graphical and technical fidelity will be looked back at very fondly, even if many of those games remain mediocre. From a visual perspective, Bioshock Infinite and Remember Me were just utterly incredible.

I'm playing through infinite right now. The imagery and art is fantastic. One of the best I've ever seen in a videogame. But all the support parts, like the shaders and god rays, were technically invented outside the studio. Technical graphic innovation is rarely seen in studio these days because of the highly specialized graphics hardware and apis. Still it does take serious technical skill to employ these technologies in concert, in realtime, in a limited RAM environment.

I agree there will be gems we look back on fondly. I feel like the games themselves will be remembered for innovative gameplay and vision, while the graphics companies will be applauded for fidelity. (or both for Unreal Studios)